History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides [best free ebook reader TXT] 📗

As soon as they arrived they set to

work with Cnemus to order ships from the different states, and to

put those which they already had in fighting order. Meanwhile

Phormio sent word to Athens of their preparations and his own victory,

and desired as many ships as possible to be speedily sent to him, as

he stood in daily expectation of a battle. Twenty were accordingly

sent, but instructions were given to their commander to go first to

Crete. For Nicias, a Cretan of Gortys, who was proxenus of the

Athenians, had persuaded them to sail against Cydonia, promising to

procure the reduction of that hostile town; his real wish being to

oblige the Polichnitans, neighbours of the Cydonians. He accordingly

went with the ships to Crete, and, accompanied by the Polichnitans,

laid waste the lands of the Cydonians; and, what with adverse winds

and stress of weather wasted no little time there.

 

While the Athenians were thus detained in Crete, the

Peloponnesians in Cyllene got ready for battle, and coasted along to

Panormus in Achaea, where their land army had come to support them.

Phormio also coasted along to Molycrian Rhium, and anchored outside it

with twenty ships, the same as he had fought with before. This Rhium

was friendly to the Athenians. The other, in Peloponnese, lies

opposite to it; the sea between them is about three-quarters of a mile

broad, and forms the mouth of the Crissaean gulf. At this, the Achaean

Rhium, not far off Panormus, where their army lay, the

Peloponnesians now cast anchor with seventy-seven ships, when they saw

the Athenians do so. For six or seven days they remained opposite each

other, practising and preparing for the battle; the one resolved not

to sail out of the Rhia into the open sea, for fear of the disaster

which had already happened to them, the other not to sail into the

straits, thinking it advantageous to the enemy, to fight in the

narrows. At last Cnemus and Brasidas and the rest of the Peloponnesian

commanders, being desirous of bringing on a battle as soon as

possible, before reinforcements should arrive from Athens, and

noticing that the men were most of them cowed by the previous defeat

and out of heart for the business, first called them together and

encouraged them as follows:

 

“Peloponnesians, the late engagement, which may have made some of

you afraid of the one now in prospect, really gives no just ground for

apprehension. Preparation for it, as you know, there was little

enough; and the object of our voyage was not so much to fight at sea

as an expedition by land. Besides this, the chances of war were

largely against us; and perhaps also inexperience had something to

do with our failure in our first naval action. It was not,

therefore, cowardice that produced our defeat, nor ought the

determination which force has not quelled, but which still has a

word to say with its adversary, to lose its edge from the result of an

accident; but admitting the possibility of a chance miscarriage, we

should know that brave hearts must be always brave, and while they

remain so can never put forward inexperience as an excuse for

misconduct. Nor are you so behind the enemy in experience as you are

ahead of him in courage; and although the science of your opponents

would, if valour accompanied it, have also the presence of mind to

carry out at in emergency the lesson it has learnt, yet a faint

heart will make all art powerless in the face of danger. For fear

takes away presence of mind, and without valour art is useless.

Against their superior experience set your superior daring, and

against the fear induced by defeat the fact of your having been then

unprepared; remember, too, that you have always the advantage of

superior numbers, and of engaging off your own coast, supported by

your heavy infantry; and as a rule, numbers and equipment give

victory. At no point, therefore, is defeat likely; and as for our

previous mistakes, the very fact of their occurrence will teach us

better for the future. Steersmen and sailors may, therefore,

confidently attend to their several duties, none quitting the

station assigned to them: as for ourselves, we promise to prepare

for the engagement at least as well as your previous commanders, and

to give no excuse for any one misconducting himself. Should any insist

on doing so, he shall meet with the punishment he deserves, while

the brave shall be honoured with the appropriate rewards of valour.”

 

The Peloponnesian commanders encouraged their men after this

fashion. Phormio, meanwhile, being himself not without fears for the

courage of his men, and noticing that they were forming in groups

among themselves and were alarmed at the odds against them, desired to

call them together and give them confidence and counsel in the present

emergency. He had before continually told them, and had accustomed

their minds to the idea, that there was no numerical superiority

that they could not face; and the men themselves had long been

persuaded that Athenians need never retire before any quantity of

Peloponnesian vessels. At the moment, however, he saw that they were

dispirited by the sight before them, and wishing to refresh their

confidence, called them together and spoke as follows:

 

“I see, my men, that you are frightened by the number of the

enemy, and I have accordingly called you together, not liking you to

be afraid of what is not really terrible. In the first place, the

Peloponnesians, already defeated, and not even themselves thinking

that they are a match for us, have not ventured to meet us on equal

terms, but have equipped this multitude of ships against us. Next,

as to that upon which they most rely, the courage which they suppose

constitutional to them, their confidence here only arises from the

success which their experience in land service usually gives them, and

which they fancy will do the same for them at sea. But this

advantage will in all justice belong to us on this element, if to them

on that; as they are not superior to us in courage, but we are each of

us more confident, according to our experience in our particular

department. Besides, as the Lacedaemonians use their supremacy over

their allies to promote their own glory, they are most of them being

brought into danger against their will, or they would never, after

such a decided defeat, have ventured upon a fresh engagement. You need

not, therefore, be afraid of their dash. You, on the contrary, inspire

a much greater and better founded alarm, both because of your late

victory and also of their belief that we should not face them unless

about to do something worthy of a success so signal. An adversary

numerically superior, like the one before us, comes into action

trusting more to strength than to resolution; while he who voluntarily

confronts tremendous odds must have very great internal resources to

draw upon. For these reasons the Peloponnesians fear our irrational

audacity more than they would ever have done a more commensurate

preparation. Besides, many armaments have before now succumbed to an

inferior through want of skill or sometimes of courage; neither of

which defects certainly are ours. As to the battle, it shall not be,

if I can help it, in the strait, nor will I sail in there at all;

seeing that in a contest between a number of clumsily managed

vessels and a small, fast, well-handled squadron, want of sea room

is an undoubted disadvantage. One cannot run down an enemy properly

without having a sight of him a good way off, nor can one retire at

need when pressed; one can neither break the line nor return upon

his rear, the proper tactics for a fast sailer; but the naval action

necessarily becomes a land one, in which numbers must decide the

matter. For all this I will provide as far as can be. Do you stay at

your posts by your ships, and be sharp at catching the word of

command, the more so as we are observing one another from so short a

distance; and in action think order and silence

all-important—qualities useful in war generally, and in naval

engagements in particular; and behave before the enemy in a manner

worthy of your past exploits. The issues you will fight for are

great—to destroy the naval hopes of the Peloponnesians or to bring

nearer to the Athenians their fears for the sea. And I may once more

remind you that you have defeated most of them already; and beaten men

do not face a danger twice with the same determination.”

 

Such was the exhortation of Phormio. The Peloponnesians finding that

the Athenians did not sail into the gulf and the narrows, in order

to lead them in whether they wished it or not, put out at dawn, and

forming four abreast, sailed inside the gulf in the direction of their

own country, the right wing leading as they had lain at anchor. In

this wing were placed twenty of their best sailers; so that in the

event of Phormio thinking that their object was Naupactus, and

coasting along thither to save the place, the Athenians might not be

able to escape their onset by getting outside their wing, but might be

cut off by the vessels in question. As they expected, Phormio, in

alarm for the place at that moment emptied of its garrison, as soon as

he saw them put out, reluctantly and hurriedly embarked and sailed

along shore; the Messenian land forces moving along also to support

him. The Peloponnesians seeing him coasting along with his ships in

single file, and by this inside the gulf and close inshore as they

so much wished, at one signal tacked suddenly and bore down in line at

their best speed on the Athenians, hoping to cut off the whole

squadron. The eleven leading vessels, however, escaped the

Peloponnesian wing and its sudden movement, and reached the more

open water; but the rest were overtaken as they tried to run

through, driven ashore and disabled; such of the crews being slain

as had not swum out of them. Some of the ships the Peloponnesians

lashed to their own, and towed off empty; one they took with the men

in it; others were just being towed off, when they were saved by the

Messenians dashing into the sea with their armour and fighting from

the decks that they had boarded.

 

Thus far victory was with the Peloponnesians, and the Athenian fleet

destroyed; the twenty ships in the right wing being meanwhile in chase

of the eleven Athenian vessels that had escaped their sudden

movement and reached the more open water. These, with the exception of

one ship, all outsailed them and got safe into Naupactus, and

forming close inshore opposite the temple of Apollo, with their

prows facing the enemy, prepared to defend themselves in case the

Peloponnesians should sail inshore against them. After a while the

Peloponnesians came up, chanting the paean for their victory as they

sailed on; the single Athenian ship remaining being chased by a

Leucadian far ahead of the rest. But there happened to be a

merchantman lying at anchor in the roadstead, which the Athenian

ship found time to sail round, and struck the Leucadian in chase

amidships and sank her. An exploit so sudden and unexpected produced a

panic among the Peloponnesians; and having fallen out of order in

the excitement of victory, some of them dropped their oars and stopped

their way in order to let the main body come up—an unsafe thing to

do considering how near they were to the enemy’s prows; while others

ran aground in the shallows, in their ignorance of the localities.

 

Elated at this incident, the Athenians at